FBI Director Makes Clinton Email Recommendation

On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey announced the findings of his probe into Hillary Clinton's email practices as secretary of state. He made it clear that he would not recommend charges be brought against Clinton: "No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." Comey emphasized that it is not typical for the FBI to make its recommendations to the Department of Justice so publicly known, but that he wanted to make it clear that the investigation has been "entirely apolitical" and "professional."

However, Comey said of Clinton and her staff that "there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling on classified information." He added that he and his colleagues at the FBI "assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account." Comey noted that the FBI read more than 30,000 emails provided by Clinton. Of them, 110 contained classified information. He also noted that the FBI retrieved thousands of emails that had not been turned over directly by Clinton, and from that cohort, three were found to contain classified information.

Comey also made it clear there was "no intentional misconduct" on the part of Clinton's lawyers as they handled her emails for the FBI's investigation.

Comey also stressed at the start of his speech that the Department of Justice was not made aware of the FBI's recommendation beforehand: "I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say."